Metro reporter Joseph Serna is named The Times’ deputy editor of culture and talent

The following announcement was sent on behalf of Angel Jennings, The Times’ assistant managing editor of culture and talent.

I am delighted to announce that Joseph Serna is the new deputy editor of culture and talent.

Serna takes on this new role after a stellar and inspiring career in Metro.

He joined The Times as a Metpro trainee in September 2012 from the Daily Pilot, where he covered politics, public safety and education for six years. Serna moved into Metro as a breaking news reporter and quickly emerged as one of the newsroom’s digital stars and innovators. He helped develop the framework and protocols for how we cover big breaking stories and helped guide the paper to reach audiences and flood the zone with coverage.

For many years, Serna’s was among The Times’ most prolific and most-read bylines.

He contributed to coverage of the San Bernardino terror attack, which won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News, and has reported extensively on wildfires, mudslides, earthquakes and other stories. He emerged as a mentor to others who share his love for news. More recently, he has focused on enterprise and investigative reporting. His examination of the failure of emergency warnings before the deadly 2018 mudslide in Montecito resulted in changes in laws, and he also led the way in exposing major lapses in the handling of the Paradise and wine country firestorms. He has become one of our experts in covering wildfires, a job that has become a year-round beat.

Serna understands The Times’ newsroom like few others, and his rise through the ranks gives him a keen appreciation of both opportunities we need to expand and barriers we must remove. He will tap into this experience to help advance the company’s efforts to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and access.

Serna graduated from Cal State Long Beach.